My name is Reid Vender, and I am excited to be the Database Management & Website Development Assistant here at BIO this summer. I have just completed my second year at Western University in medical health informatics, where I’ll be using the computer skills I’ve learnt to spice up the BIObus blog and manage an all-new online database, cataloging body mass values for all the specimens collected at BIO. However, it’s another side of my passion for nature and biodiversity which I’ll be sharing with you in this post.

I descended through four cloud layers onto rolling hills, speckled with the peach terracotta of small villages lining the ridges which formed a network of grandiose mountains. Costa Rica is where I spent the month of May, volunteering at the Ostional National Wildlife Refuge with turtle conservation. This was my first experience out in the field, and my first experience immersed in Spanish culture!

Excitedly, we started our first day at 6:30 a.m. to beat the heat, which is regularly 40˚C. Shovel in hand, we trek to the untouched blanket of sand coating the glistening, morning beach. “1 m2 wide by 0.5m deep, dig and search,” is our pursuit for nests containing hundreds of turtle eggs from the last “arribada” (where thousands of turtles come ashore to nest and lay all at once). Our research is regarding the hatching success of Olive Ridley sea turtles, so our goal is to determine which stage of development each egg arrested in development, as all the nests dug up are past their incubation period. New nests are always re-covered to prevent disturbing the delicate balance of moisture and temperature that is necessary to hatching success. Mold and fungus-infested nests are common too, and these are chucked to the surface to degrade away from the new nests and cease the potential spread of these pesky substances.

A turtle egg arrested in stage 2 of development. The head and body begins to take shape.

In addition to these excavations, we go on scheduled patrols of the beach from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. to search for turtles. There is no light pollution here, and a sheet of stars forms a cover poked with holes. The moon shines so brightly, we can see our shadows. The sand shines like black vinyl, and the white noise of the crashing waves is its only track. Surprisingly, turtle tracks stand out unbelievably darker than our surroundings and only with our torches off. We trace up the path to find our first turtle. In a trance, she practices soft, rhythmic breathing, and water streams slowly from her salt glands around her eyes, which gives the illusion of a mother crying tears of joy during birth. But we have to snap out of our trance because it is our job to record where the turtle is laying, measure nest depth, her dimensions, and the number of eggs which are laid. As soon as she is done, we quickly tag her fin; it is believed that a turtle returns to the same beach as the one which it hatches on.

Counting turtle eggs as they are hatched.

Ostional is the only place in the world which still allows the harvesting of turtle eggs by the population there, and the Ostional National Wildlife Refuge aims to make this harvesting sustainable. Throughout their many years of research, it has been shown that the eggs laid in the early portions of arribadas have a very low hatching success due to other turtles, which come later, digging up these nests, and fierce competition between the millions of eggs which are laid on top of each other in these two days. It is these eggs which are the only eggs allowed to be harvested legally, and the process is highly regulated and documented. From my personal observation, it is a great practice which allows the small, local town to retain this massive part of their culture, nonetheless there is controversy regarding this tradition and I can respect both sides of the argument.

A nest of turtle eggs being laid.

I had a profound, small taste of coastal, Costa Rican culture in my month spent in Ostional, and I’m excited to share more of my experience in my next post with you.

Plants, Plants, Plants, (and a caterpillar or two)

Plants, Plants, Plants, (and a caterpillar or two)

Last weekend was a very exciting couple days for me and everyone at BIO. This was because of the much awaited Bioblitz! For those of you who have never heard of a Bioblitz, I will give you a bit of an explanation. First you choose an area (this specific bioblitz was done in the Don Valley Watershed within the GTA ). Then you recruit as many people as you can to help out, usually through a volunteer basis (both scientists and non-scientists). You then split everyone in teams depending on what taxon they have expertise in such as mammals, fishes, lichens, birds, etc. Then finally, you sample the heck out of the place!

A lot of people from BIO volunteered for this event and helped out in many of the teams but most of us worked either on the terrestrial or aquatic invertebrate teams because that is where they could help out the best. I personally took a different route and decided to be on the plant team! I am going to tell you a little bit about my experience and show you some cool pics we took along the way!

This is the team at the end of the weekend looking a bit tired and wet. From left to right; James, Claire, and me!

My team consisted of James Kamstra, Claire Harvey, and myself. We were a small part of a much larger plant group that spread out over the watershed. James was like a walking encyclopedia! There were only a few sedges he couldn’t rhyme off the Latin name to within a second of seeing it. I was pretty much in awe the whole time while I was writing down all the species we found. Claire was fairly knowledgeable with her plants as well. I am somewhat of a beginner in plant identification so this was a huge learning experience for me. Our team covered Taylor Massey Creek.

This is the Dodder plant sucking the life out of a small shrub in a wet area!

We saw so many amazing plants, but one of the most interesting by far was Cuscuta epithymum, commonly known as Dodder. This plant is classified as parasitic! It is yellowish/orange and kind of looks like spaghetti, although it probably doesn’t taste the same. It appears leafless because its leaves have evolved into small scales known as haustoria. The dodder plant grows up from the seed and attaches itself onto a plant in close proximity. It then abandons its own roots and starts entering the host plant through its haustoria and sucks out the host plant’s nutrients. I guess the world of plants is pretty cut-throat!

Another notable story from our weekend was on the Sunday when we were identifying some sedges in a grassy wetland. We were walking by a small willow shrub and noticed something hanging from it. It turned out to be a recently formed butterfly pupa. After a further inspection of the wetland, we saw them everywhere! We even found one of the caterpillars in a J-shape ready to start forming its pupa! James confirmed that they were all Baltimore checkerspot butterflies and that they must have formed somewhat of a colony in the wetland.

The top photo is the Baltimore checkerspot caterpillar about to start to form its pupa. The bottom photo is a fully formed pupa, showing some amazing colouration.

All-in-all I had a great weekend with this crew and I will definitely be attending the next Ontario Bioblitz! For more information on bioblitzes you can check out http://www.ontariobioblitz.ca/. Please consider volunteering for the one next year along the Credit River. It is a great experience and I highly recommend it for anyone interested!